Spanking Ella feels like coming home. The curve of her ass fits perfectly in my hand, and the sounds she makes as I smack herare both feminine and chastised. Mr. Red didn’t touch her yet, I don’t think. He thought I was going to take the risk of playing his game. He was wrong. She’s too precious to play with, I realize now. We should never have allowed her to go.
“Ow! Okay! I’m sorry you got shot, Leo!”
I let her up, because I don’t really want to hurt her, and she doesn’t deserve punishment.
“You were brave,” I tell her.
“I was?” She looks confused.
I realize she still has no idea how much danger she was really in, and I think I plan to keep it that way.
“How fucked up is he?” She gets back up and looks over at the doctor.
“Bad enough that he should be in hospital.”
“Why aren’t you there, then?”
“Because you were in danger,” I say, tugging her back down.
“You came while you were dying?” She creeps back up over the seat back, to the point I smack her ass again out of simple frustration. “Why?”
“Because I didn’t want you to die,” Leo says. “In spite of your rudeness, I prefer you alive.”
“That’s so damn sweet, but I was fine.”
“That man has a guillotine in his dining room,” Luke says.
“Really? I didn’t notice that. Then again, we didn’t dine. We had cream teas in his parlor, and then he took me up to see the attic and left me there.”
Ella
“I guess I have a different idea of what danger is.”
“You have no concept of what danger is,” Leo says.
I sit back down and for some reason I can’t begin to explain to myself, tears start coming to my eyes. They run down my cheeks and I try to wipe them away without anyone noticing.
Aiden is the sort of man who always notices everything though.
“What’s wrong?” He asks the question in a low murmur, giving me a little in the way of privacy.
“Nothing,” I say. “I don’t know. I think I’m happy.”
“You’re crying because you’re happy?”
“She’s crying? Why is she crying?” Leo pipes up from the back.
He hates being wounded. I bet it’s killing him not to be able to bound up and see what is going on. Luke is not held back in the same way. Two seconds later, he’s practically in my lap.
“I’m okay. Get off me! I’m happy. It’s nice. Shut up. Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to discuss any of it. I’m fine.”
“I’d believe you if you said one of those things, but saying them all in rapid succession makes me pretty sure none of them aretrue,” Luke replies, nudging my knee. “What’s going on with you?”
“You all came to get me from the most evil man you know, and you killed the most evil man I knew already. I know you were getting revenge for Teddy, and he deserved it. He’s the worst. Or was. But you came for me, even after I ran. You could have just let me go. It would have been so much easier, and then I would have been with Eric Mandeville, and he would have found some use for me, and…”
“We love you,” Luke says. “We’re always going to come for you. Even Leo.”
“You shouldn’t speak for him,” I say.
